Hymnarium

Before the complex and consolidated liturgical office book known as the Breviary assumed its definitive structural order at the close of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, its varied devotional contents were distributed across separate, specialized volumes. One of these independent liturgical books was the Hymnarium (alternatively termed the Hymnale or Hymnal). In its original medieval context, the term denotes a specific codex containing the metric hymns proper to the various sacred seasons, ecclesiastical festivals, or those systematically assigned to the canonical Hours of the day.

The Hymnarium frequently appeared as a standalone volume. However, it was also commonly appended directly to the end of a Psalter or occasionally bound alongside an Antiphonary.

Critical Manuscript Sources

Historical hymnologists study the development of early western church song by reconstructing the texts preserved across ten primary manuscript collections and miscellaneous service books dating from the seventh to twelfth centuries:

• (a) The Durham Hymnary (Durham Chapter Library, B. iii. 32): An eleventh-century repository containing the Latin hymns used in the Anglo-Saxon Church. It features an interlinear Anglo-Saxon gloss. Written in the diocese of Winchester around 1050, it was printed in 1851 by the Surtees Society as Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

• (b) Cottonian MS. Julius A. vi (British Museum): An eleventh-century Latin Hymnarium arranged in metrical form, with each hymn followed by a prose paraphrase and an interlinear Anglo-Saxon gloss. A late tenth-century calendar is prefixed to the volume.

• (c) Cottonian MS. Vespasian D. xii (British Museum): An early eleventh-century Latin collection where each metric hymn is accompanied by a prose version and an interlinear Anglo-Saxon translation. It includes later twelfth and fourteenth-century textual additions on its final folios.

• (d) Harleian MS. 2961 (British Museum): An eleventh-century Collectarium or inchoate Breviary missing the standard Psalter. It historically belonged to Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter (1050–1072). The dedicated Hymnarium occupies folios 218 through 256.

• (e) The Antiphonary of Bangor (Ambrosian Library, Milan): A landmark seventh-century Irish service book originating from the Monastery of Bangor in County Down. Internal evidence dates its compilation precisely to 680–691 during the administration of Abbot Cronan. It stands as a miscellaneous collection of early Celtic devotional pieces and hymns.

• (f) Liber Hymnorum / Book of Hymns (Dublin): An eleventh-century Irish manuscript collection of ancient devotional pieces and early hymns. Two historic copies survive in Dublin libraries, with the Trinity College copy edited by Dr. J. H. Todd for the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society.

• (g) Corpus Christi College MS. 391 (Cambridge): A complete Psalter written shortly after 1064 at Winchester. It later migrated to Worcester before being acquired by Archbishop Matthew Parker. The comprehensive Hymnarium directly follows the Psalter text.

• (h) Additional MS. 30851 (British Museum): An eleventh-century liturgical service book belonging to the ancient Mozarabic Church of Spain. It contains a standard Psalter, scriptural canticles, a full Hymnarium, and distinct local programmatic offices.

• (i) Junius MS. 25 (Bodleian Library, Oxford): A manuscript written around 890 containing twenty-six early Latin hymns interleaved with an ancient Frisian gloss. Bequeathed by Francis Junius, it was published critically by E. Sievers as Die Murbacher Hymnen at Halle in 1874.

• (k) Harleian MS. 2928 (British Museum): A twelfth-century manuscript containing a fully developed, complete Hymnarium. Due to its later compilation date, it is primarily utilized by scholars to verify texts that are absent or divergent in the earlier ninth and eleventh-century codices.